Smelt Appetizer — Head and all

It’s that rare time again when the candlefish are running and some one is catching them.

Candlefish are the smelt that return to spawn in rivers and streams of the Olympic Peninsula and are smaller then their Columbia River cousins. They are also super cheap at a buck and some change for 8.

Smelt are rich but not terribly fishy. Three is any non-starving person’s limit. Don’t buy 16 just because they are so adorable you can’t stand to leave them sitting on the grocery store shelf (the fish version of a habanero).

While at the store, pick up:
breading material like Panko or cornmeal and flour
Romaine lettuce
Soy
Rice wine vinegar
Red chili sauce

To prepare the smelt you may want to clean them because even though they are small and even though they haven’t eaten since leaving the ocean, their innards do have a particular flavor. The fish are small enough to leave the bones in and the head and tail on.

Dredge the smelt through panko

Or

Dredge them through a mixture of:
a half cup of corn meal,
a quarter cup of flour
a heavy dash of salt and pepper

Deep-fry them in vegetable oil in a cast iron skillet. Erik set up his butane burner on the porch which kept the house from smelling like fried fish.

Mix up a sauce of soy, rice wine vinegar and red chili sauce.

Serve them inside whole leaves of lettuce and drizzle the sauce over smelt.

Eat.

We ate the smelt with the head on. If you are squeamish about eating fish heads, cut the heads off after you fry them. The heads, for the record, don’t add any flavor but do make you feel a little macho. For breakfast we are going to have smelt BLTs.

Got Sardines? Find a recipe for those puppies here.